Preacher's Pursuit (The First Mountain Man)

by William W. Johnstone

  Once Preacher was dead, then there would be time to sort out everything else.

  And with that in mind, Fairfax didn’t spare even a single thought for the fate of the prisoners who found themselves in the savage hands of the Blackfeet.

  By the time night fell, the group Preacher and his companions were following had moved through the pass that led out of the long, lush valley and into more rugged territory beyond.

  A few days earlier, Preacher had followed the survivors from that bunch of would-be killers through that same pass. He still wondered who they had been and why they had tried so hard to kill him, but he didn’t figure the answers to those questions would be forthcoming any time soon. Those varmints were probably a hundred miles away by now.

  The bunch that the rescue party was following didn’t have that big of a lead, but they were still well ahead of the pursuit. Knowing that he and the others from the settlement couldn’t take a chance on losing the trail in the darkness, Preacher reluctantly called a halt and told the men to make camp.

  As Preacher dismounted, Dog looked up at him and whined.

  “I know,” Preacher said. “You think you could follow that bunch just with your nose, and I reckon there’s a good chance you’re right. We can’t afford to run the risk o’ losin’ a day or two, though.”

  Pete Sanderson laughed and said, “You’re talkin’ to that dog like he can understand what you’re sayin.”

  Preacher regarded him gravely. “I think critters understand a lot more’n we give ’em credit for. I know damn well that Dog and Horse understand what I’m sayin’ part o’ the time. They’ve done what I said and saved my bacon too many times for me to think different.”

  “I didn’t mean any offense, Preacher,” Sanderson said hastily. It was obvious that he didn’t want any more trouble with Preacher, even if the mountain man did have a broken arm.

  Uncle Dan laughed. “You listen to Preacher, boy,” he told his nephew. “Pay attention and learn ever’thing you can from him, and you might just live a while.”

  “It ain’t like I’m a babe in the woods or somethin’,” Sanderson said with a frown.

  “Pete…compared to Preacher, ever’body this side o’ John Colter is a babe in the woods.”

  Sanderson shut up after that.

  It was a cold camp, the men eating jerky and biscuits that they had brought with them from the settlement. Preacher set up a schedule for guard duty, then said, “Dog and me are gonna do some scoutin’. We’ll be back after a while, so don’t shoot us by accident when we come in.”

  “You want some comp’ny?” Uncle Dan asked.

  Preacher shook his head. “I’d rather you stay here and keep an eye on things.”

  The old-timer nodded in understanding. Next to Preacher, he was the most experienced man in the group.

  “Come on, Dog,” Preacher said to the big cur. They set out on their scouting mission, vanishing into the shadows around the camp as if they had never even been there.

  Preacher’s arm hurt like a son of a bitch, but he could tell that it was just sore. The long day’s ride hadn’t done any more damage to it.

  And being out in the night like this, just him and Dog flitting through the darkness like phantoms, revitalized him and made him feel better. With eyes like a cat’s, he had always been at home in the dark. The chances of anybody spotting him before he spotted them were very small.

  “Trail, Dog.”

  The low-voiced command sent the big cur leaping ahead, nose held close to the ground. With his keen sense of smell, the scents of the people and horses they had been following all day were as distinctive as giant painted signs would have been to humans.

  Preacher loped after him, confident that Dog would not lose the trail. The jarring of his footsteps made his left arm ache a little more, but he easily ignored the pain.

  For the next hour, Dog kept moving steadily eastward. Preacher could tell the direction by the position of the stars that floated overhead in the ebony sky.

  Then their path began to curve in a more southeasterly direction. When Preacher noticed that he said, “Hold on there, Dog.”

  The big cur came to a halt, but he seemed to strain forward against an invisible leash. After having been on the scent for so long, he didn’t want to stop now. His low growl told Preacher that he wanted to continue following the trail.

  “Hang on a minute and let me think.”

  As long as the Blackfeet had been heading in a generally northward direction, they had been moving back toward their usual hunting grounds. Preacher wasn’t even surprised by the drift to the east they’d been making.

  But for them to turn south struck Preacher as odd. If they continued in that direction for very many days, they would be getting into country that was controlled primarily by the Cheyenne and the Pawnee.

  The savage Blackfeet weren’t scared of the other tribes. Preacher knew that.

  But at the same time, it didn’t seem likely to him that they would venture into the territory of their enemies without a good reason.

  The war party had failed to wipe out the settlement, and most of the warriors had been lost in the battle. The survivors had a couple of white prisoners. They should have been heading home to lick their wounds and start healing their injured pride by torturing those captives.

  Instead, they were headed in the other direction.

  “What’n blazes are you varmints up to?” Preacher muttered aloud.

  Dog had no answer except an eager whine.

  “Go,” Preacher told him, and once again the big cur took off, hot on the scent.

  Chapter 25

  Time meant little or nothing to Preacher in a situation such as this. He had the scent just like Dog, at least figuratively speaking, and he didn’t want to give it up.

  For the next hour, man and dog moved steadily through the rugged terrain. Over rocky ridges, down long valleys, across shallow, fast-flowing creeks.

  The streams were the biggest challenge. Every time they came to one, Dog had to cast back and forth along the opposite bank until he picked up the scent again.

  He never failed to do so, though, and usually fairly quickly because their quarry moved straight across the creeks and didn’t try to conceal their trail.

  With their usual arrogance, the Blackfeet weren’t worried about anybody following them. Even though their raid had been a failure, and the war party was only a shadow of what it had been when it started out, they still had absolute confidence in their own fierce fighting skills.

  Preacher wasn’t sure what time it was, but he knew he and Dog had been gone longer than he’d intended to be when he left the others in camp. He was about to tell Dog to stop so they could turn around and go back when an almost imperceptible pinpoint of light in the distance caught his attention.

  “Hold it, Dog,” he said.

  He stood there concentrating. The light winked out, then on again, and Preacher knew that it wasn’t actually going out. Things were moving between him and it…people or horses or tree branches blowing in the wind…maybe all three.

  But it was a campfire, he was sure of that, located about three miles away across a valley, just this side of a range of low hills.

  Preacher’s instincts told him that Laura Mallory was over there, along with her brother Clyde.

  It was all he could do not to head for the distant camp then and there. He considered it briefly, thinking that he could slip in and free Laura and Clyde and get them out of there before their Indian captors even knew what was going on.

  But the more pragmatic side of Preacher’s brain told him that the likelihood of such an attempt being successful was dangerously slim.

  These weren’t white men he was dealing with after all. They were seasoned Blackfoot warriors. If he’d just been on a killing mission, he might have been able to pull that off because he wouldn’t have to worry about anyone except himself.

  He couldn’t count on the Mallorys to be stealthy enough in their ge
taway, though. The slightest sound would be enough to alert the Blackfeet to the fact that something was wrong.

  Then Preacher would have to fight his way out with the two prisoners, and the odds were that all three of them would die.

  So, difficult though it was, he told himself to wait. He would have a better chance to free Laura and Clyde later, when the men from the settlement were with him.

  He just hoped that nothing terrible happened to the captives between now and then.

  “Come on, Dog.”

  Another whine of complaint from the big cur.

  “I know. I feel the same way myself, damn it. But we got to use our brains and be smart about this. We’ll catch up to ’em tomorrow or the next day, and then I expect you’ll have your fill o’ fightin’.”

  Reluctantly, Dog followed as Preacher headed back to the spot where he had left the others. The mountain man had been over this ground once before tonight, and even though it had been dark then, he had no trouble retracing his steps now. That sort of thing was natural with him, as easy and automatic as breathing.

  He paid more attention to how much distance he was covering, and by the time he neared the camp, he estimated that he had come about two miles.

  That meant the Blackfeet and their captives were between four and five miles ahead. Not an insurmountable lead, but Preacher and his companions couldn’t afford to take it easy. They had to push ahead hard the next day.

  In fact, they weren’t going to wait that long, Preacher decided. He called softly, “Hello, the camp!”

  “Preacher?” The sentry gulped after asking the question, revealing his nervousness. “Is that you?”

  “It’s me,” Preacher said dryly, not adding that it was a good thing he wasn’t a Blackfoot, else he likely would’ve been able to sneak up on the youngster and cut his throat. “I’m comin’ in.”

  Uncle Dan greeted him when he came into camp with Dog trailing at his heels. “Find anythin’ interestin’?” the old-timer asked.

  “I saw a light at the edge of some hills about five miles southeast of here.”

  “Campfire o’ the folks we’re lookin’ for?”

  “That’s what I figure.”

  Uncle Dan scratched at his beard. “Southeast o’ here, you say?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Sort of odd, ain’t it? That ain’t the way I’d expect a bunch o’ Blackfeet to be headin’ with some prisoners.”

  “The same thought occurred to me,” Preacher admitted.

  Pete Sanderson had come up to listen to the conversation. “What’s odd about it?” he asked.

  “It appears those Injuns ain’t headin’ home after all,” his uncle replied. “If they keep goin’ that way, they’ll leave their stompin’ grounds behind and risk runnin’ into some Cheyenne or Pawnee.”

  “We need to catch up to them before that can happen,” Preacher said.

  It was bad enough that they had to try to rescue Laura Mallory and her brother from the Blackfeet. He didn’t want to throw the Cheyenne into the mix, too. They might not be quite as bloodthirsty as the Blackfeet, but they were still plenty dangerous.

  “I hope you fellas got rested up whilst I was gone,” he went on. “Get ready to move out.”

  “You mean we’re goin’ after them tonight?” Sanderson asked. “I thought you didn’t want to risk losin’ the trail in the dark.”

  “I don’t, but there’s not much chance of that now. Dog never lost the scent, and I saw where that campfire is. I reckon we can make up half the distance by mornin’, so we’ll have an honest chance o’ catchin’ ’em tomorrow.”

  Sanderson rubbed his heavy jaw and frowned. After a moment, he said, “Yeah, but…what if that fire you saw ain’t the Blackfoot camp? What if you wind up leadin’ us in the wrong direction?”

  “Damn it, boy—” Uncle Dan began.

  Preacher stopped him with an uplifted hand. “No, Pete’s not askin’ anything I ain’t already asked myself. All I can say is that I’d stake my life I’m right. Problem is, it ain’t just my life I’m bettin’. It’s Laura Mallory’s, and her brother’s life.” He looked straight at Sanderson. “And if I’m wrong, they’ll likely die. Knowin’ that, is there anybody who doesn’t want to come with me?”

  None of the men spoke up for a long moment, until Sanderson finally said, “I reckon if you’re back-in’ the bet, Preacher, then we’ll take it, too.”

  “Good enough,” Preacher said with a nod. “Everybody get your gear together. We got some ground to cover before mornin’.”

  Ezra Flagg didn’t make any reference the next morning to what had happened the night before. In fact, he didn’t even look at her, Laura Mallory noted, which was fine with her.

  They still needed Flagg to deal with the Blackfeet. Laura suspected that if not for Flagg’s presence, Chief Walks Like a Bear and the other warriors might just kill her and Clyde and be done with it.

  So for that reason, she was glad Flagg had backed off and evidently didn’t intend to make an issue of her rejection. If Clyde found out what Flagg had tried to do, he might try to kill Flagg himself. That could lead to all sorts of problems.

  Better to pretend that it hadn’t happened. She was willing to do that, just as long as Flagg was.

  Flagg went over to Clyde and said, “We’ll be gettin’ to the edge o’ Blackfoot territory today. The chief and his men will want to turn back.”

  Clyde nodded. “You warned us about that. Will the tribes that we encounter farther east be hostile to a small group? None of them bothered us while the wagon train was on its way out here.”

  “Yeah, they’ll leave a big, well-armed bunch alone for the most part,” Flagg agreed. “The Cheyenne and the Pawnee don’t like whites any more than the Blackfeet do. We’ll have to keep our eyes open.”

  Laura felt a shiver of nervousness go through her. It was a long way to St. Louis. A great deal could happen between here and there…most of it bad.

  “Our best bet,” Flagg went on, “is to try to catch up with those wagons of yours that are on their way back. If we can join up with them, we shouldn’t have much trouble.”

  “That’s a splendid idea. We’ll be able to travel considerably faster than the wagons, so it shouldn’t take too long.”

  Once they had eaten breakfast, the group mounted up and headed into a range of low hills that ran north and south. Flagg seemed to know the country, and led them along a trail that twisted back and forth through the valleys.

  It was pretty country, Laura thought. Not as spectacular as the mountains surrounding the valley where the settlement was located, but quite nice. The scenery, in fact, reminded her of parts of the English countryside.

  That thought made a pang of longing go through her. “Do you think we’ll ever go home, Clyde?” she asked her brother as she rode alongside him.

  “Our home was lost to us a long time ago, darling.”

  “No, I didn’t mean the place where we grew up,” she explained. “I was talking about England in general.”

  He shrugged. “I suppose we’ll probably return there at some point. If the savages had managed to wipe out those Americans, I thought we might make our home there, once an English settlement was established. That may still come about.” His voice hardened. “It will if I have anything to say about it. We’ll simply have to come up with another plan to drive them out. Perhaps our ally in St. Louis will have some suggestions along those lines.”

  This was not the first time Laura had heard her brother mention some mysterious ally in St. Louis. She knew that someone in the city had helped him put his hands on the guns that ultimately had gone to Chief Walks Like a Bear and the other Blackfoot warriors.

  Most of those guns were now lost, along with the warriors themselves, she thought bitterly. A wasted effort all around. They had done some damage to the Americans, but not nearly enough.

  Clyde was right, though. They couldn’t give up just because of this one setback, terrible though it was.<
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  They would devise some other plan to drive the Americans out of the western half of the continent, and once that had been accomplished, the British could sweep down from Canada. Gradually, the Americans would be pushed back and their expansionist dreams stymied.

  The time would come, sooner or later, when the so-called United States would once again be part of the British Empire, just as God had intended all along. Laura was sure of it.

  As they topped a rise around the middle of the day, Laura peered over several more ridges and saw the end of the hills and the beginning of the vast expanse of prairie in the distance to the east. The Great American Desert, some people called it.

  Other than linking the words “great” and “American” in any respect, Laura agreed with that description. She remembered the seemingly endless days it had taken the wagon train to cross the plains.

  She had been excited when she first saw the mountains looming in snowcapped majesty to the west. That sight surely meant that the journey was nearly over, she had thought.

  But the days had continued stretching out into weeks, and it seemed that the mountains retreated before them since every morning the peaks appeared to be as far away as they had been on the previous morning.

  Finally, of course, they had reached the foothills—these same foothills, she thought now, although somewhat to the south of here, she guessed—and then the mountains themselves, and eventually the lush valley where the Americans had founded their settlement.

  Up to that point, everything had gone according to the plan laid out by Lord Aspermont.

  Then Preacher had shown up.

  And ruined everything.

  She ought to hate him, Laura thought. She wanted to since he was an American.

  But she had seen the way he rushed to her defense a couple of nights earlier, when one of the Blackfeet caught up in the heat of battle had tried to kill her. She had regretted it when she thought he was dead, and when Walks Like a Bear had said that Preacher was still alive, an unaccountable feeling of relief had gone through her.